Then and Now. By C. H. Firth. (Macmillan and Co.
le,)— This admirable paper, the Creighton Lecture for 1917, supplies just such "a comparison between the war with Napoleon and the present war" as many people who arc not historical scholars will be glad to have. Professor Firth reminds us that our forefathers were plagued by grumblera and doubters, among them Sydney Smith, who in" Peter Plymiey's Letters," published in 1807 after Tilsit, argued that sewage in the war was impossible, and that them was no reason for continuing it. Our ancestors were more fortunate than wo, in that their industry and foreign trade grew by
leaps and bounds during the war. But "they were tried by fiercer extremes of good and evil fortune than we have known ; the burdens and perils we have borne for three years they endured for seven times as many, and did not lay down their arms till they had attained the ends they fought for. Here it will be enough for us to equal them."
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